Review

This animation-Oscar-nominated film is a colorful and lovingly evocative melodrama that’s also a tribute to Cuban bebop in pre-Castro Havana and New York. The passionately on-again-off-again romance of a moody, woman-chasing pianist (very loosely based on Bebo Valdés, who performs much of the score) and a curvaceous singer who rises to stardom in the U.S., it moves fleetly but with endless grace notes.